Nearly as long as Star Trek tie-in novels have been in existence, the word ‘canon’ has caused discussions and confusion amongst fandom, although in a perfect world canon shouldn’t even concern the fans.
Let’s start with some basic questions about canon:
What exactly is canon?
In general, ‘canon’ is the summarising expression for all events, people, places etc. which are considered to be ‘real’ inside the fictional Star Trek universe. To be more precise: everything that happened in either the five live-action TV series (Star Trek, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise) or the ten movies. Deleted scenes, The Animated Series, books, or other tie-in products like comics or computer games, are not considered canon.
What is the purpose of canon?
Canon is a guideline for the writers of both on-screen and off-screen Star Trek – it provides the facts of the Star Trek universe they have to respect when writing their stories. So the prime purpose of canon is to ensure that the Star Trek universe remains consistent with itself, and doesn’t become a place where every story contradicts the one before it.
So, are non-canonical things of a lesser quality?
No. There is no effect on the quality of a story, whether it’s considered canon or not. Since Star Trek first and foremost is a TV/movie series, the assumption is that while only a fraction of the Star Trek fans are reading the books, most of them have seen the various episodes and movies. The chance is high that, if an episode refers to a character or story from the books, many viewers will be confused about that reference; but the chance of such confusion is lower if it refers to a previous onscreen event. So the quality of a story has nothing to do with whether it is canon or not – canon ensures that only things seen on-screen are regarded as true, to make sure there is no confusion among the fans.
But I have heard that Jeri Taylor’s Voyager books Mosaic and Pathways are canon, what’s up with that?
They are not. They probably had a higher chance of not getting contradicted, or could even be considered as part of the series’ bible, while Taylor was on the production staff, but they still conform to the same rules like every book: they are not part of the canon. The same is true for Gene Roddenberry’s novelisation of the first Star Trek movie, for that matter. Everything not shown on screen is non-canon.
So there is no chance that my favourite novel will ever be part of the canon?
It’s highly unlikely, yes. Although there are a few things which originated in the novels and made their way in the canon, those are few and far between. The prime example is Sulu’s first name, Hikaru. It was first used in novels and was validated later in the movies. The chances of a whole novel being adapted for TV/cinema are near zero if the past is any indication, though.
Although discussions of canon have been around for a long time, their frequency has increased over the last few years, and one reason for that is that the way of storytelling in the novel line has changed over time. While the line-up contained only standalone novels in the past, which often contradicted each other, today many of the novels are connected and share a common background ‘picture’. Of course there are still novels which don’t belong to any bigger story arc and only want to tell their standalone stories, but even those usually respect ‘facts’ created in other novels.
There are many positive things to say about this newfound sense for continuity among modern-day Trek literature. When an action in one novel or series affects another novel or series, the Star Trek literature universe becomes a living, breathing place, instead of being ‘only’ a background scenario authors choose to tell their stories in. Since this dynamic of cause and effect is spread over the whole universe, the reader never knows if or when something from novel x will be picked up again in story y. When you find something like this, as a faithful reader of the Trek stories it often increases your enjoyment of the tapestry woven in Trek literature these days.
But there are negative effects, too. On the one hand, more and more people are confused about whether they have to read novel x before they can start novel y, even if both novels don’t belong to one ongoing series. On the other hand, there are people who ‘demand’ that the novels should be canon, because the story arcs presented there are so much better than the onscreen offerings in their opinion.
But, like we clarified above, quality has nothing to do with being canon or not, and if you’re not into writing professionally for Star Trek, just forget that the word ‘canon’ even exists; it is just something the writers have to deal with. You as a ‘mere reader’ can consider real whatever you want – just enjoy the novels and decide for yourself what you want to accept as part of your personal Star Trek universe. Nobody can stop you from doing that, but please call it ‘personal continuity’ and not ‘canon’ or ‘personal canon’, because every time someone from Pocket Books reads this he or she hits the desk with their head. And we don’t want them to be seriously injured, do we?
Star Trek novels are released by Pocket Books.